Happy 10th Anniversary Kingdom Hearts!

On this date 10 years ago, this great series known as Kingdom Hearts was released. Captivating fans young and old alike with it’s blend of Final Fantasy-ness but more importantly it’s Disney-ness. The legend goes of how this masterpiece came to be was this: In Japan both Square Enix (back then known as Squaresoft) and Disney shared the same building. After a meeting Shinji Hashimoto and a Disney executive met in an elevator and the two would conversate about Square making a game for Disney. In February of 2000, the game started development and in E3 2001, it was announced to the world and finally on March 28, 2002 it was released in Japan.

Experiencing Sora’s journey has been spectacular. What started off as three friends building a raft to explore outside worlds soon exploded into something that we’ll always remember. From Sora’s first contact and battle with Leon to meeting other Final Fantasy cameos to Donald and Goofy. Sora traveling to find his friends through familiar and well known Disney worlds with major nostalgia going into each one almost feels like you’re that kid again watching the movies except this time you’re interacting with them!

So today, we raise our glasses and show our appreciation for this series that captured our hearts in this enchanting tale of friendship. Never forgetting the moments that truly defined the series and made us fans that we are today. Even series director Tetsuya Nomura had some say about the anniversary and thanks to goldpanner, she has translated his message:

“Today we celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Kingdom Hearts! It’s thanks to you, the fans, that this series has become so long, thank you so very much. I’d be so glad to see you all stick around from now on, too. I’m already getting congratulatory tweets, thank you. I’ll keep working hard.

Finally, tomorrow will be the release of Kingdom Hearts 3D. Lately I’ve been surrounded with whispers that it’s the masterpiece of the entire series. I’ve also heart bold impressions such as ‘we have to put wall kick-jumping in all Kingdom Hearts games now. By all means please play and see. This time you can see the ‘secret’ even on beginners, if you do your best.”

With Kingdom Hearts 3D releasing today in Japan, starting a new journey may not be so hard or maybe it’s already begun. The next story is happening now, and we’re slowly counting down the days until we get news about Kingdom Hearts III.

So once again Happy 10th anniversary Kingdom Hearts! Who would like a piece of cake to commemorate this historic event?